Oceans Apart
by BobMalooga
Summary: Tempest reflects on the death of Tula and his impending marriage to Dolphin.


Oceans Apart: Featuring Tempest  
by Keith A. Kilburn  
  
Disclaimer: All the characters are owned by DC Comics and Time/Warner; this is an original story that does not intend to infringe on their copyright.   
  
How does one put into words what someone else meant to them?   
  
How do you explain the loss you feel when someone you have loved so deeply, so   
richly and so unconditionally isn't there anymore suddenly?   
  
How do you explain the way that person made you feel, the way they looked into   
your eyes and dissolved all fear and doubt and filled you with something that   
was so stunning, so rich and full that you scarcely needed anything else?   
  
How do I explain all of that in words?   
  
How do I tell you what her loss meant to me and how it turned my life upside   
down and inside out?   
  
Where do I start?   
Elizabeth B. Browning wrote:   
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.   
I love thee with a love I seem to lose   
With my lost Saints, -I love thee with the Breath,   
Smiles, tears, of all my life -If God choose,   
I shall but love thee better after death.   
  
I had never meet anyone that made me feel the way that Tula did, before she came   
into my life I was virtually alone in a world of people. I had Arthur, but he   
was like a brother to me and a boy needs companionship and to see and be around   
others his own age.   
  
That is where the Teen Titans came in, I was a founding member. My name was   
Aqualad, I liked that name as much as Arthur liked Aquaman, which is to say not   
at all.   
  
Like his name, the surface dwellers and their news reporters hung mine on me. I   
would have preferred to be called Garth.   
  
But I got Aqualad instead.   
  
My life wasn't easy. I guess that no one's ever is.   
  
But the Titans made it a little easier for me, but I can't say that I ever   
really felt as though I was one of them. Don't get me wrong, we are all friends   
but let's be honest here. Dick and Wally were best friends pretty much from the   
beginning. Donna and Roy dated one another and they all shared one thing I could   
never really share in.   
  
There lives.   
  
I couldn't stay out of water for more then an hour at that time and I was always   
having to duck out on any fun to get re-hydrate myself and as a result I never   
got to have the fun that they did.   
  
I never went to the Dances or hung out at the clubs or did any of the   
socializing they did with one another.   
  
I was pretty much alone except for Arthur, who made it abundantly clear that he   
wasn't fit to be a father figure to me and didn't see me as his son in any form   
or fashion, his wife Mera was the same way.   
  
It was just after Arthur managed to reclaim the throne of Atlantis that my life   
changed for the better.   
  
I had helped Arthur reclaim his throne and didn't really feel as though I had   
received my lions share of the credit and was mopping about it when this vision   
of beauty approached me and not only showered me with praise but told me how   
much she liked me.   
  
"There I was fourteen years old and alone and along came Tula, the first girl   
who had ever talked to me like I was normal. She was unafraid of my purple eyes   
and what they meant in Poseidon society. I'd like to say it was Love at first   
site, but at fourteen I had no real concept of what love was or how Tula made me   
feel and so I treated her like I treated Wondergirl.   
  
And something strange happened.   
  
Tula's resolve was strengthened by this and she chased me that much harder, I'll   
be honest. I didn't know how to deal with it. I had no experience with dating   
girls since the only real girls I had ever known were Donna, her roommate Sharon   
Tracy and Lilith.   
  
I was clueless as to what to do and so I treated Tula like a friend or a buddy.   
About this time Arthur got the bright idea to send me off to Scotland for   
education, to be honest with you I'm not sure why he did this. Logic would seem   
to dictate that If I had to re-hydrate myself ever hour that an Atlantean school   
would be better for me to learn both about the culture and to be amongst my own   
kind.   
  
But Arthur sent me off to Scotland and so I was separated from Tula.   
  
Someone wrote that absence makes the heart grow fonder.   
  
It's true because quite some time passed before I saw Tula again and it was as   
if I had last seen her not a day before. The look she gave me when she saw me   
and that smile of hers melted my heart and I knew then what she had figured out   
sometime before.   
  
Tula was in love with me, it was no mere infatuation and when I saw her smile at   
me and realized that I was the reason for her smile my love for her deepened and   
strengthened in a way that could never be broken.   
  
And from that day we were inseparable.   
  
She took the name Aquagirl and began adventuring with the Titans and me, but   
soon that changed.   
  
I loved the Titans and they were my friends but I wanted to spend more time with   
Tula and she with I. But away from them. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that she   
tried to keep me from the Titans, we just wanted to spend more time alone   
together.   
  
I'm sure they understood, as they didn't seem to question my leaving too much.   
I cant tell you how many hours we spent just looking into each others eyes, her   
eyes were this indescribable blue, a shade that the clearest sky's nor the   
deepest oceans could touch. I had never seen anything like them before or since.   
  
Tula's smile touched my heart in ways that I can't even begin to describe -- it   
removed all doubt and dispelled all fear. She made me realize what I had missed   
so much in life, Tula was the one shining example of love in a lifetime of being   
used as a punching bag by others.   
  
I remember waking up the morning after we expressed our love for each other,   
with her in my arms and feeling her warm, soft skin pressed to mine. Her fingers   
curled up and nails digging softly into my chest and her head resting on my   
shoulder.   
  
I watched her sleep for sometime before she woke up and I thought about all that   
was yet to come for us.   
  
Marriage.   
  
Children.   
  
Old age.   
  
So much more.   
  
I wanted that moment to last forever, I wanted to live in that moment for the   
rest of my life staying there were it was safe, with her in my arms and never   
letting go of her.   
  
I wish I could go back to that moment. I wish I could stretch it out to make it   
last forever and relive it over and over again.   
  
But I can't.   
  
And so we come to the most difficult thing I have ever had to write about.   
It was a time of great conflict, an epic battle for life.   
  
The Crisis was well under way; I won't bore you with the details. You probably   
know as much as I do about the Crisis. But in the middle of it all there was a   
mindless creature named Chemo and he was spewing out toxic chemicals and acids   
into the New York harbor while Tula and I dealt with Black Manta and Killer   
Shark.   
  
I had just managed to get some eel's to attack and wrap themselves around Black   
Manta when I realized that Killer Shark was choking Tula, I punched out Manta   
quickly and turned back to go help Tula when I saw Killer Shark take off   
suddenly.   
  
It was then that I realized that Tula was caught in the middle of the toxic   
garbage that had been sprayed above us, I don't remember moving from the spot I   
had been floating at or getting her from the chemicals. The next thing I   
remember was heading back to Atlantis praying to our Gods that she would make it   
and thinking how life wasn't fair, how we didn't have enough time together and   
how she wouldn't make it.   
  
We arrived soon enough in Poseidonis and then the waiting began.   
  
I'm sure if you have ever had a loved one who was hurt and taken to the hospital   
you'll know what the waiting is like. You watch everything trying to figure out   
what the hell is going on and question everyone who bares any resemblance   
whatsoever to anyone with medical training. Seconds stretch into minutes and   
minutes into hours and hours into an eternity as your fears, which are bad to   
begin with magnify and grow exponential until suddenly you are gripped with the   
fear that perhaps, just perhaps you'll never see that love one again.   
  
Never be able to look into their eyes and know they love you.   
  
Never be able to watch them sleep in your arms.   
  
Never be able to tell them all the things that you wanted to tell them but   
somehow never had to the chance to say.   
  
Never be able to say I love you one last time.   
  
Never able to steal one last kiss.   
  
I never got to do any of those things before Tula died.   
  
I broke down and wept unable to face the truth and the enormity of what had just   
happen to her, I couldn't look at Mera as she tried to comfort me.   
  
If our love was unmeasurable by any means known then my grief was more so.   
  
Robert Burns wrote:   
To see her is to love her,   
And love but her forever,   
For nature made her what she is,   
And never made Another.   
  
I grieved for her for so long and tried to hold on to the memories of us   
together, desperately not wanting to let go of this tender, gentle love that I   
had felt and that had strengthened me. My behavior became destructive and I   
found myself on the verge of suicide, largely because of the revelation that I   
wouldn't be with her again until I to was dead.   
  
I took risks that I never would have taken otherwise and nearly got myself   
killed more then once, it took a while for me to realize that Tula would have   
wanted me to go on living, she certainly wouldn't have wanted me to hurt myself   
to be with her.   
  
Tula would have wanted me to be happy.   
  
These are words I write for no one but myself, this is my way of putting the   
past in the past and letting Tula know that I will never, not ever forget her or   
what she meant to me.   
  
Soon enough I'm going to be married to a young lady, whom I hope to love one day   
as much as I do Tula, and soon thereafter we will have a family together when   
our baby is born.   
  
And maybe if it's a girl I'll name her Tula.   
  
The End   
  



End file.
